I bought this for home and personal automotive repair use. I spent more for a unit that is capable of 1000 Amps DC so I could hopefully be able to diagnose automotive starting issues should they arise. Amprobe is actually owned by Danaher Corp which also owns Fluke so Amprobe is kind of the Chevy to the Cadillac Fluke. This meter works well for personal purposes, but as an actual electrician I would recommend something better for professional use if your job requires frequent use of a meter. If you only use a meter every two months to verify voltage or find a short this meter is actually probably more than you need.
When you initially turn the meter on to detect amperage the default setting is DC. You have to press the "select" button to switch to AC. You'd think AC would be the default setting. The selector gauge requires the use of both hands to operate and the leads are a bit flimsy. The readings take quite some time to come up and I've noticed that after taking an amperage reading the meter will drop down to about .5 amps and stay there with no wire in the jaws. When you operate the ammeter jaws you can hear the spring stretching and unstretching - not a huge deal, but noticeable. The unit feels sturdy enough and the reddish part of the housing is rubberized. The "select" button doubles as your way to activate the lighted display for those times when you're in the dark.
I would've really liked to see Hz/frequency offered as I have seen much less expensive meters offer it, but I suppose Amprobe didn't want to take business away from their higher end meters. I would've traded the capacitance feature for Hz/frequency. In eight years as an electrician I've never needed to know capacitance. By the way, the slow response does not seem to affect the ability of the meter to successfully display inrush current when using the MAX HOLD feature. The manual says that response time when using the MAX HOLD feature is 30ms. They don't mention a response time for any of the other features, but I can tell you it's more like 2-5 seconds. It's like the meter can go fast when it needs to for the MAX HOLD feature but they detuned it for everything else. Again, maybe so they don't take a lot of business from their higher end models.
It definitely is a good meter with a lot of capabilities - for the price. If you want faster response and more intuitive design be ready to shell out at least double the money for the same features.
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